Almost exactly a year after his last performance in the Barbican Hall, Russian piano maestro Evgeny Kissin returns for another recital, likely to be a high point in the venue’s 2015/2016 season. Enviably virtuosic and the master of a wide repertoire, Kissin has transcended his prodigy status to become one of the world’s most in demand players. Noted for his forceful, even physical relationship with his instrument and effusive, expansive style, you can comfortably expect to leave a Kissin concert with shredded emotions.

This time around, Kissin has curated a broadly chronological program of astonishing diversity. He begins with Mozart’s ever-popular Sonata No. 10 (1783), one of the great composer’s best known compositions. Afterwards, the audience will be plunged into the deep end, with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 23 (1804-6), the Apassionata, one of the most challenging solo piano pieces ever composed.

The second half begins on a more introspective note, with Brahms’ Intermezzi(1892), based on a Scottish ballad and composed only a few years before his death. Rather than end the concert with another canonised favourite, Kissin has chosen to finish with works from two obscure Spanish pianists, Isaac Albéniz and Joaquín Larregla. Judging by their pieces’ regionalist names – ‘Granada, Cadiz, Cordoba, Asturias’ and ‘Viva Navarra!’ respectively – it is probable they will offer a rousing, bombastic climax tinged with Iberian colours.

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What the critics say

LA TIMES

"[Kissin is] possibly the great native Russian pianist of our day. He conveys the distinctively booming Russian piano sound, as thick and rich and satisfying as beet borscht with the kind of sour cream you can find nowhere but Russia."

THE INDEPENDENT

"His approach at the Barbican to that most hackneyed of piano concertos, Tchaikovsky’s first, was typical, avoiding the usual schmaltz of the opening through the sheer perfection of his sound, delivering the virtuoso passage-work with lightness and precision, investing the start of the cadenza with Chopinesque delicacy, and answering the orchestra’s staccato entry in the slow movement with a pearlised staccato of his own."